| Whose business? The salaries of business school professors and liberal arts professors are unequal at TCU. Why? Salaries are a reflection of societal values. In the "real" world, business professionals are more highly valued than social workers and teachers, as evidenced by higher salaries. Some say TCU salary differences exist precisely because of real world salary differences. Businesspeople earn more than business professors. In order to attract them to TCU, their salaries need to be competitive with the marketplace. English professors probably make more as English professors than as writers, so there is not a need to pay them more than they would otherwise be earning. There is some substance to that argument, but there is more to it than that. While TCU is certainly not alone in perpetuating these inequalities, that doesn't change the fact that it is. If TCU aims to replicate the market-driven mentality of current American society, it is succeeding admirably. If TCU's goal, however, is to actually improve society, it fails. Just because America currently values businesspeople more than social workers and teachers, doesn't mean we have to. TCU must be bold. While it may be difficult and controversial, TCU needs to equalize salaries and money spent on the different schools. Liberal arts professors and students are just as valuable as business school professors and students, but that is not the message TCU is sending. Let's change that message by equalizing salaries and money spent on all the schools.
New York case revisits race issue Sean Carroll, 36, sat on an Albany, N.Y., witness stand Tuesday while he sobbed into a tissue and apologized for what he and three of his co-workers call a mistake that ended the life of a human being. At one point during his testimony, Carroll said he walked up to the fallen victim, held the dying man's hand and pleaded with him not to die. This all sounds quite touching on the surface. A man sits in full view of a courtroom and a nation via Court TV with all of his emotions and vulnerabilities exposed, attempting to convince a jury that he is drowning in a sea of contrition. But upon closer inspection of the facts of Carroll and his co-workers' case, one has to wonder if they are apologetic for making a fatal error or for being exposed for the vicious murderers they really are. Last February, New York City police officers Carroll, Edward McMellon, Kenneth Boss and Richard Murphy shot and killed an unarmed man. The victim, Amadou Diallo, was standing in the vestibule of his apartment when the four plain clothes police officers sprang from their cars and, depending on whom you believe, either warned Diallo to put his hands up or simply began firing. The police officers contend they offered Diallo the standard policeman's identification and warning to freeze and only began firing when Diallo appeared to remove a black object from his back pocket that they thought was a gun. Witnesses on the scene insist they heard no warning, just someone - perhaps Diallo, perhaps the police officers - yell, "gun," and then they heard the shots. Either way, when the shots stopped, Diallo was dead. The case has made national attention not just because he was unarmed, but because of the sheer brutality of his death. Standing in the entryway of his own apartment, holding only his black wallet, Diallo was shot 41 times. He was so riddled with bullets, one police detective told Time magazine that some of the bullets actually fell out of him as he was being taken away from the scene. At least one shot crisscrossed Diallo's body, indicating that the officers continued to shoot even after he had fallen. It is also making national attention because Diallo was an African immigrant to New York, and all four of the police officers are white, something Judge Joseph Teresi doesn't want to focus on his courtroom. It is a fact, however, that the Rev. Al Sharpton and other black Americans insist on pointing out that factor as the driving force behind the murder. Of course, this isn't the first time situations like this have arisen. Anyone remember Rodney King? But this case is different than King's because all Diallo was guilty of was being black. The officers have admitted that they were patrolling the area looking for a black man accused of raping 50 women. Diallo, in a circumstance that has become all too common, became a suspect just by being black and male. This raises questions about our society that people like Teresi don't want to answer. Why are black men still looked at as threats and suspects? Even here, when the TCU rapist was doing his thing almost a year ago, the suspect was described as a black man, with a physical description so vague and all-inclusive it included anyone who ever had an ancestor from Africa, had a penis and walked near TCU. Campus police officers were stopping anyone who barely fit the description, prompting several black male students to hold a meeting to figure out how to fight the situation. It would be somewhat comforting to think that was just the campus police's way of protecting us and that the paranoia was only temporary and that it was only here that black men were suspects and threats. But situations like Diallo's remind us that this is not the case. All over the nation, thanks to prejudice and the media, which insist on perpetuating negative stereotypes and images of black people, blacks are still feared simply for being black. It used to be that black men would jokingly complain about not being able to walk down the street without being harassed by police. Now, thanks to this case, it seems they can't even stand in their own homes. So when Carroll sits on a witness stand crying before the courtroom where Diallo's mother sits and is sheltered from Sharpton and his protesters outside, one has to wonder if he's sorry because he shot an innocent, unarmed man, or if he's just plain sorry.
SheriAnn R. Spicer is a senior radio-TV-film major from Fort Worth. She can be reached at (sheriannrspicer@yahoo.com). Quote unquote "It's Madonna and her cover of the Don McLean song, "American Pie." I'm not really sure what the Material Girl was doing. Maybe she just ran out of material." - Kevin Dunleavy, Skiff columnist, on Madonna's remake of Don McLean's 1971 song.
"If you are already a leader, you have to back the horses that are pulling the wagon." - Nowell Donovan, the Charles B. Moncrief chair of geology, on the university's support of faculty in its efforts to globalize TCU
"We're talking about how we become a truly international university - not just a university in Texas doing international programs." - Larry Adams, associate provost for academic affairs,on TCU's global positioning priorities
"This generation is going to inherit a great range of opportunities from women who have pushed aside barriers for them." - Jean Giles-Sims, professor of sociology, on the current status of women in the work force
"Once you get into the role and situation, you don't think of it as a job. It's the way you live your life because you're never really not working." - Kristin Price, a sophomore speech communication major and Sherley Hall resident assistant, on the responsibilities of being an RA
"We work very hard to see that our renovations meet the law. When we do that, we usually find that our disabled students like them." - Larry Garrison, university architect, on the university's efforts to make public areas accessible to disabled people in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
"There's no question about it. It's not harder to be a professor of business than it is to be a professor of anything else." - Gregg Franzwa, professor of philosophy, on salary inequities between business and liberal arts professors
"The social work department's been in trailers forever." - Samuel Rose, sophomore social work major, on salary inequities between business and liberal arts professors
"I can think of no better permanent improvement to this campus than to save a life." - Jennifer Jost, chairwoman of the House of Student Representatives Permanent Improvements Committee, on the House's campus-wide effort to raise at least $150,000 for an organ transplant for Robbyn Kindle, a senior nutrition and dietetics major Letter to the editor Staff member urges people to donate their organs to save lives
Thank you for your informative article on Feb. 11 about organ transplants and the severe shortage of donors. My sister was a 21-year-old TCU student when she received a liver transplant in 1987. She would not be alive today if it were not for an organ donor - a 37-year-old man who was killed in an automobile accident somewhere in Texas. I encourage everyone to seriously consider organ donation. Tell your family if you decide to donate your organs, and indicate your preference on your driver's license. You no longer need your organs after you die, so give them to others and help them live. The bumper sticker on my sister's car reads, "Don't send your organs to Heaven. Heaven knows we need them here." Please donate your organs. The organs from one person can help as many as 25 people live.
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